I’ve always said that companies are hiring way too many people to
manage online advertising and that frankly, that media buyer are just
lazy and many are a complete waste of money. Agreeing with me, the CEO
of Procter & Gamble, the mega-brand company that owns, among other
thigns, Old Sice, has decided to lay off 1,600 people in their marketing
department. The reason? That they are a complete waste of money since
much of their Facebook success has been based on free advertising.

In the digital space, with things like Facebook and
Google and others, we find that the return on investment of the
advertising, when properly designed, when the big idea is there, can be
much more efficient. One example is our Old Spice campaign, where we had
1.8 billion free impressions and there are many other examples I can
cite from all over the world. So while there may be pressure on
advertising, particularly in the United States, for example, during the
year of a presidential election, there are mitigating factors like the
plethora of media available.

This is extremely interesting, because it basically points out that,
unlike what Facebook would like you to think, that you don’t have to
spend a single dollar on Facebook advertising to have a very successful
Facebook campaign. Much about online advertising is becoming less and
less about how much you spend, but how creative you can be in spreading
the message. This is something that any performance marketer knows,
especially those who depend completely on organic traffic.